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GENERAL McCLELMt'S 

LETTER OF ACCEPTANCE 



.TOGETHER WITH HIS 



WEST-POINT ORATION. 



GENERAL McCLELLAN'S LETTER OF ACCEPTANCE. 



Orange, N. J., Sept. 8, 1864. 

Gestlemkn : I have the honor to acknow- 
ledge the receipt of your letter informing me 
of my nomination by the Democratic National 
Convention, recently assembled at Chicago, as 
their candidate at the next election for Presi- 
dent of the United States. 

It is unnecessary for me to say to you chat 
this nomination comes to me unsought. 

[ am happy to know that when the nomina- 
nation was made, the re cord of my public lift; 
was kept in view. 

The effect of long and varied service in the 
army during war and peace has been to strength- 
en and make indelible in my mind and heart 
the love and reverence for the Union, Consti- 
tution, laws, and flag of our country, impressed 
upon me in early youth. 

These feelings have thus far guided the 
course of my life, and must continue to do so 
to its end. 

The existence of more than one government 
over the region which once owned our flag is 
incompatible with the peace, the power, and 
the happiness of the 



The preservation of our Union was the solt- 
avowed object for which the war was com- 
menced. It should have been conducted lor 
that object only, and in accordance with those 
principles which I took occasion to decli^re 
when in active service. 

Thus conducted, the work of reconciliation 
would have been easy, and we might have 
reaped the benefits of our many victories on 
land and sea. 

The Union was originally formed by the ex- 
ercise of a spirit of concihation and compro- 
mise. To restore and preserve it, the same 
spirit must prevail in our councils, and in the 
hearts of the people. 

The reestablishment of the Union in all its 
integrity is, and must continue to be, the indis- 
pensable condition in any settlement. So soon 
as it is clear, or even probable, that our pres- 
ent adversaries are ready for peace, upon the 
basis of the Union, we should exhaust all the 
resources of statesmanship practised by civil- 
ized nations, and taught by the traditions of 
the American people, consistent with the honor ' 
and interests of the country, to secure such 



Published by E. P. PATTEN, 35 Park Row, New- York City. 



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peace, reestablish the Union, and guarantee 
for the future the constitutional rights of every 
State. The Union is the one condition of 
peace — we ask no more. 

Let me add what I doubt not was, alth'ougli 
unexpressed, the sentiment of the Convention, 
as it is of the people they represent, that when 
any one State is willing to return to the Union, 
it should be received at once, with a full guar- 
antee of all its constitutional rights. 

It a frank, earnest, and persistent effort to 
obtain those objects should fail, the responsi- 
bility for ulterior consequences will fall upon 
those who remain in arms against the Union. 
But the Union must be preserved at all haz- 
ards. 

T could not look in the face my gallant com- 
rades of the army and navy, who have survived 
so many bloody battles, and tell them that their 
labors and the sacrifice of so many of our slain 
and wounded brethren had been in vain ; that 
we had abandoned that Union for which we 
have so often perilled our lives. 

A vast majority of our people, whether in 
the army a;nd navy or at home, would, as I 
would, hail with unbounded joy the perma- 
nent restoration of peace, on the basis of the 
Union urftier the Constitution, without the ef- 
fusion of another drop of blood. But no peace 
can be permanent without Union. 

As to the other subjects presented in the 
resolutions of the Convention, I need only say 
that I should seek, in the Constitution of the 



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United States and the laws framed in accord- 
ance therewith, the rule of my duty and the 
limitations of executive power ; endeavor to 
restore economy in public expenditure, re- 
establish the supremacy of law, and, by the 
operation of a more vigorous nationality, re- 
sume our commanding position among the na- 
tions of the earth. 

The condition of our finances, the depreci- 
ation of our paper money, and the burdens 
thereby imposed on labor and capital, show 
the necessity of a return to a sound financial 
system ; while the rights of citizens and the 
rights of States, and the binding authority of 
law over President, army, and people, are sub- 
jects of not less vital importance in war than 
in peace. 

Believing that the views here expressed are 
those of the Convention and the people you 
represent, I accept the nomination. 

I realize the weight of the responsibility 
to be borne should the people ratify your 
choice. 

Conscious of my own v\-eakness, T can only 
seek fervently the guidance of the Ruler of the 
universe, and, relying on His all-powerful aid, 
do my best to restore Union and peace to a 
suffering people, and to establish and guard 
their liberties and rights. 

I am, gentlemen, very respectfully, 
Your obedient servant, 

George B. McClellan, 
Hon. HoHATio Seymour, and others. Committee. 



GENERAL McCLELLAN'S 



ORATION AT WEST-POINT, 



June 15th, 1864. 



All nations have days sacred to the remem- 
brance of joy and of grief. They have thanks- 
givings for success ; fasting and prayers in the 
hour of humiliation and defeat ; triumphs and 
peans to greet the living and laurel crowned vic- 
tor. They have obsequies and eulogies for the 
warrior slain on the field of battle. Such is the 
duty we are to perform to-da3^ The poetry, 
the histories, the orations of antiquity, all re- 
sound with the clang of aims ; they dwell 
rather upon rough deeds of wai- than the gentle 
arts of peace. They have preserved to us the 
names of heroes, and the memory of their deeds 
even to this distant day. Our own Old Testa- 
ment teems with the nan-ations of the brave 
actions and heroic deaths of Jewish patriots ; 
while the New Testament of our meek and 
suffering Saviour often selects the soldier and 
his weapons to typify and illustrate religious 
heroism and duty. These stories of the actions 
of the dead have frequently survived, in the 
lapse of ages, the names of those whose fall was 
thus commemorated centuries ago. But, al- 
though we know not now the names of all the 
brave men who fought and fell upon the plain 
of Marathon, in the pass of Thermopylas, and 
on the hills of Palestine, we have not lost the 
memory of their examples. As long as the 
warm blood courses in the veins of man ; as 
long as the human heart beats high and quick 
at the recital of brave deeds and patriotic sacri- 
fices, so long will the lesson still invite gener- 
ous men to emulate the heroism of the past. 
Among the Greeks it was the custom that the 
fathers of the most valiant of the slain should 
pronounce the eulogies of the dead. Sometimes 
it devolved upon their great statesmen and 
orators to perform this mournful duty. Would 
that a new Demosthenes, or a second Pericles 
could arise and take my place to-day, for he 
would find a theme worthy of his most brilliant 
powers, of his most touching eloquence. 

I stand here now, not as an orator, but as 
a whilom commander, and in the place of the 
fathers of the most valiant dead; as their com 
rade, too, on many a hard- fought field against 



domestic and foreign foe — in early youth and 
mature manhood — moved by all the love that 
David felt when he poured forth his lamenta- 
tions for the mighty father and son who fell on 
Mount Gilboa. God knows that David's love 
foi- Jonathan was no more deep than mine for 
the tried friends of many long and eventful 
years, whose names are to be recorded upon the 
structure that is to rise upon this spot. Would 
that his more than mortal eloquence could 
grace my lips and do justice to the theme ! 

We have met to-day, my comrades, to do 
honor to our own dead^brothers united to us 
by the closest and deai'est ties — who have freely 
given their lives for their country in this war — 
so just and righteous, so long as its purpose 
is to crush rebellion and to save our nation 
from the infinite evils of dismetnberment. Such 
an occasion as this should call forth the deep 
est and noblest emotions of our nature — pride, 
sorrow, and prayer. Pride, 'that our country 
has possessed such sons ; sorrow, that she has 
lost them ; prayer, that she may have others 
like them ; that we and our successors may 
adorn her annals as they have done; and that 
when our parting hour arrives, whenever and 
however it may be, our souls may be prepared 
for the great change. 

THE VOLUNTEERS. 

We have assembled to consecrate a ceno- 
toph which shall remind our children's child- 
ren in the distant future of their fathers' 
struggles in the days of the great rebellion. 
This monument is to perpetuate the memory of 
a portion only, of those who have fallen for the 
nation in this unhappy war ; it is dedicated to 
the officers and soldiers of the regular army. 
Yet this is done in no class or exclusive spirit, 
and in the act we remember with reverence and 
love our comrades of the volunteer#who have 
so gloriously fought and fallen by our sides. 

Each State will, no doubt, commemorate in 
some fitting way the services of its sons who 
abandoned the avocations of peace and shei 
their blood in the ranks of the volvmteers. How 



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richly they have earned a nation's love, a nation's 
gratitude. With what heroism they have con- 
fronted death, have wrested victory from a stub- 
born foe, and have illustrated defeat, it well be- 
comes me to say, for it has been my lot to 
• f'ommand them on many a sanguinary field. 1 
know that I but echo the feeling of the regulars 
when I award the high credit they deserve to 
their brave brethren of the volunteers. 

But we of the regular army have no States to 
look to for the honor due our dead. We be- 
long to the whole countr}-, and can neither 
expect nor desire the general government to 
make a perhaps invidious distinction in our 
favor. We are few in number, a small band 
of comrades, united by peculiar and very bind- 
ing ties. For, with many of us, our friendships 
were commenced in boyhood, when we rested 
here in the shadow of the granite hills which 
look down upon us where we stand ; witii 
others the ties of brotherhood were formed ui 
more mature years — while fighting among the 
rugged mountains and the fertile valleys of Mex- 
ico — within hearing of the Eternal waves of the 
Pacific — or in the lonely grandeur of the great 
plains of the far West. With all, our love and 
confidence have been cemented by common dan- 
gers and suflPerings — on the toilsome march, in 
the dreary bivouac, and amid the clash of arms 
and in the presence of death on scores of bat- 
tle-fields. West-Point, with her large heart, 
adopts us all — graduates, and those appointed 
from civil life — officers and privates. In her 
eyes we are all her children, jealous of her 
fame and eager to sustain her world-wide reputa- 
tion. Generals and private soldiers, men who 
have cheerfully offered our all for our dear 
country, we stand here before this shrine, ever 
hereafter sacred to our dead, equals and 
brothers in the presence of the common death 
which awaits us all — perhaps on the same field 
and at the same hour. Such are the ties which 
unite us — the most endearing which exist among 
men; such the relations which bind us together 
— the closest of the sacred brotherhood of arms. 
It has therefore seemed, and it is fitting, that 
we should erect upon this spot, so sacred to us 
all, an enduring monument to our dear brothers 
who have preceded us on the path of peril and 
of honor which it is the destiny of many of us 
to tread. 

What is this regular army to which we be- 
long ? 

Who were the men whose death merits such 
honors from the living ? 

^\"hat is the cause for which they have laid 
down their lives? 

Our regular or permanent army is the nucleus 
which in time of peace preserves the military 
traditions of the nation, as well as the organiza- 
tion, science, and instruction indispensable to 
modern armies. It may be regarded as coeval 
with the nation. It derives its origin from the 
old continental and State lines of the Revolu- 
tion, whence, with some interruptions and many 
changes, it has attained its present conditio... 



In fact, we may with propriety go even beyond 
the Revolution to seek the roots of our genea- 
logical tree in the old French wars ; for the cis- 
atlantic campaigns of the seven years' war were 
not confined to the *' red men scalping each 
other by the great lakes of North- America;" 
and it was in them that our ancestors first par- 
ticipated as Americans in the lai'ge operations 
of civilized armies. American regiments then 
fought on the banks of the St. Lawrence and 
the Ohio, on the shores of Ontario and Lake 
George, on the islands of the Caribbean, and in 
South-America. Louisburg, Quebec, Duquesne, 
the Moro, and Porto Bello attest the value of the 
provincial troops, and in that school were edu- 
cated such soldiers as Washington, Putnam. 
Lee, Montgomery, and Gates. These, and men 
like Greene, Knox, Wayne, and Steuben, were 
the fathers of our permanent army, and under 
them our troops acquired that discipline and 
steadiness which enabled them to meet upon 
equal terms and often to defeat the tried veterans 
of England. The study of the history of the 
Revolution and a perusal of the dispatches of 
Washington, will convince the most skeptical 
of the value of the permanent army in achieving 
our independence, and establishing the civil edi- 
fice which we are now fighting to preserve. 
The war of 1812 found the army on a footing 
far from adequate to the emergency, but it was 
rapidly increased, and of the new generation 
of soldiers, many proved equal to the require- 
ments of the occasion. Lundy's Lane, Chippe- 
wa, Queenstown, Plattsburgh, New-Orleans, all 
bear witness to the gallantry of the regulars. 
Then came an interval of more than thirty 
years of external peace, marked by many 
changes in the organization and strength of the 
regular army, and broken at times by tedious 
and bloody Indian wars. Of these the most 
remarkable were the Bl.ackHav.k war, in which 
our troops met unflinchingly a foe as relentless 
and far more destructive than the Indians — that 
terrible scourge, the cholera — and the tedious 
Florida war, where, for so many years, the Sem- 
inoles eluded in the pestilential swamps our 
utmost efforts, and in which were displayed 
such traits of heroism as that commemorated by 
yonder monument to Dade and his command, 
when "all fell save two, without an attempt to 
retreat." At last came the Mexican war to re- 
place Indian combats and the monotony of the 
frontier service, and for the first time in many 
years the mass of the regular army M^as concen- 
trated, and took the principal part in the bat- 
tles of that remarkable and romantic war. 
Palo Alto, Resaca, and Fort Brown were the 
achievements of the regulars unaided; and as 
to the battles of Monterey, Buena Vista, Vera 
Cruz, Cerro Gordo, and the final triumphs in 
the valley, none can trnl}' say that they could 
have been won without the regulars. When 
peace crowned our victories in the capital of the 
Montezumas, the army was at once dispersed 
over the long frontier, and engaged in harassing 
and dangerous wars with the Indiixns of the 



plains. Thus thirteen long years were spent, 
until the present war broke out, and the mass 
of the array was drawn in to be employed 
against a domestic foe. 

I cannot proceed to the events of the recent 
past and the present without adverting to the 
gallant men who were so long of our number, 
but who have now gone to their last home ; for 
no small portion of the glory of which we boast 
was reflected from such men as Taylor, Worth, 
Brady, Brooks, Totten, and Duncan. 

There is a sad story of Venetian history that 
has moved many a heart and often employed 
the poet's pen and painter's pencil. It is of an 
old man whose long life was gloriously spent in 
the service of the state as a warrior and a 
statesman, and who, when his hair was white 
and his feeble limbs could scarce carry his bent 
form toward the grave, attained the highest 
honors that a Venetian citizen could reach. 

He was Doge of Venice. Convicted of trea- 
son against the state, he not only lost his life 
but sutfered besides a penalty which will en- 
dure as long as the name of Venice is remem- 
bered. The spot where his portrait sfcould 
have hung in the great hall of the Doge's pal- 
ace was veiled with black, and there still re- 
mains the frame with its black mass of canvas; 
and this vacant frame is the most conspicuous 
in the long"line of effigies of illustrious Doges! 
Oh 1 that such a pall as that which replaces the 
portrait of Marino Faliero could conceal from 
history the names of those, once our comrades, 
who are now in arms against the flag under 
which we fought side by side in years gone by. 
But no vail can cover the anguish that fills our 
hearts when we look back upon the sad mem- 
ory of the past, and recall the affection and 
respect we entertained toward men against 
whom it is our duty to act in mortal combat. 
Would that the courage, ability, and steadfast- 
ness they display had been employed in the 
defence of the " Stars and Stripes " against a 
foreign foe, rather than in this gratuitous and 
unjustifiable rebellion, which could not be so 
long maintained but for the skill and energy 
of these our former comrades. 

GENERAL SCOTT. 

But we have reason to rejoice that upon this 
day, so sacred and so eventful for us, one grand 
old mortal monument of the past still lifts 
high his head amongst us, and graces by his 
presence the consecration of this tomb of his 
children. We may well be proud that we have 
been commanded 1)}^ the hero who pm-chased vic- 
tory with his blood near the great waters of Nia- 
gara; who repeated and eclipsed the achieve- 
ments of Cortes ; who, although a consummate 
and confident commander, ever preferred, when 
duty and honor would permit, the olive branc'a 
of peace to the blood-stained laurels of war; 
and who stands at the close of a long, glorious, 
and eventful life, a living column of granite, 
against which have beaten in vain alike the 
blandishments and storms of treason. His 



name will ever be one of our proudest boasts 
and most moving inspirations. 

In long distant ages, when this incipient 
monument has become venerable, mos:"-c]ad, 
and perhaps ruinous ; when the names inscrib- 
ed upon it shall seem to those who pause to 
read them indistinct momentoes of an almost 
mythical past, the name of Winfield Scott will 
still be clear cut upon the memory of them all, 
like the still fresh carving upon the monuments 
of long-forgotten Pharaohs. 

THE REGULAR ARMT IN THE PRESENT WAR. 

But it is time to approach the present. In the 
wai- which now shakes the land to its foundation 
the regular army has borne a most honorable 
part. Too few in numbers to act by themselves, 
regular regiments have participated in every 
gi'eat battle in the east, and in most of those 
west of the Alleghanies. Their terrible losses 
and diminished numbers prove that they have 
been in the thickest of the fights, and the testi- 
mony of their comrades and commanders shows 
with what undaunted heroism they have upheld 
their ancient renown. Their vigorous charges 
have often won the day, and in defeat they have 
more than once saved the army from destruc- 
tion or terrible losses by the obstinacy with 
which they resisted overpowering numbers. 
They can refer with pride to the part they 
played upon the glorious fields of Mexico, and 
exult at the recollection of what they did at 
Manassas, Gaines's Mill, Malvern, Antietam, 
Shiloh, Stone River, Getty sburgh, and the 
great battles just fought from the Eapidan 
to the Chickahominy. They can also point 
to the officers who have risen among them and 
achieved great deeds for their country in this 
war, to the living warriors whose names afe 
on the nation's tongue- and heart, to« numer- 
ous to be repeated here, yet not one of whom I 
could willingly omit. But perhaps the proud- 
est episode in the history of the regular army is 
that touching instance of fidelity on the part of 
the non-commissioned officers and privates, who, 
treacherously made prisoners in Texas, resisted 
every temptation to violate their oath and de- 
sert their flag. Offered commissions in the rebel 
service, money and land freely tendered them, 
they all scorned the inducements held out to 
them, submitted to every hardship, and, when 
at last exchanged, avenged themselves on the 
field of battle for the unavailing insult offered 
their integrity. History affords no brighter 
example of honor than that of these brave 
men, tempted, as I blush to say they were, by 
some of their fcy-mer officers, who, having them- 
selves proved false to their flag, endeavored to 
seduce the men who had often followed them in 
combat, and who had naturally regarded them 
with respect and love. 

Such is the regular army; such its history 
and antecedents ; such its officers and men. 
It needs no herald to trumpet forth its praises. 
It can proudly appeal to the numerous fields 
from the tropics to the frozen banks of the St. 



Lawrence ; from the Atlantic to the Pacific, fer- 
tlHzed by the blood, and whitened by the bones, 
of its members. But I will not pause to eulo- 
gize it ; let its deeds speak for it ; they are more 
eloquent thau tongue of mine. 

THE DEAD OF THE REGULAR ARMY. 

Why arc we here to-day ? This is not the 
funeral of one brave warrior, nor even of the 
liarvest of death on a single Juattlfe-field ; but 
these are the obsequies of the best and bravest 
of the children of the land, who have fallen 
in actions almost numberless, many of them 
among the most sanguinary and desperate of 
which history bears record. The men whose 
names and deeds we now seek to perpetuate, 
rendering them the highest honor in our |)ower, 
have fallen wherever armed rebellion showed 
its front, in far-distant New-Mexico, in the 
broad valley of the Mississippi, on the bloody 
hunting-grounds of Kentucky, in the mountains 
of Tennessee, amid the swamps of Carolina, on 
the fertile fields of Maryland, and in the blood- 
stained thickets of Virginia. They were of all 
grades, from the general officer to the private ; 
of all ages, from the gray-haired veteran of fifty 
years' service to the beardless youth; of all 
degrees of cultivation, from the man of science 
to the uneducated boy. It is not neocssar}^ 
nor is it possible, to repeat the mournful yet 
illustrious roll of dead heroes whom we have 
met to honor, nor shall I attempt to name all 
of those who most merit praise; simply a few 
who will exemplify the classes to which they 
belong. 

Among the last slain, but among tha first in 
honor and reputation, w'as that hero of twenty 
battles, John Sedgwick. Gentle and kind as a 
woman ; brave as a brave man can be ; honest, 
sincere, and able ; he was a model that all may 
strive to 'imitate, but whom few can equal. In 
the terrible battles ^hich just preceded his 
death he had occasiofi to display the highest 
qualities of a commander and a soldier. Yet 
after escaping the stroke of death when men 
fell around him by thousands, he at last met 
his fate at a moment of comparative quiet by 
the ball of a single rifleman. He died as a sol- 
dier would choose to die, with ti-uth in his 
heart, and a sweet, tranquil smile upon his 
face. Alas ! our great nation possesses few 
such sons like true John Sedgwick. 

Like him fell, too, at the very head of their 
corps, the white-haired Mansfield, after a long 
car.'er of usefulness, illustrated by his skill and 
cool courage at Fort Brown, Monterey, and 
Buena Vista ; John F. Reynolds and Reno, both 
in the full vigor of manliood anfl intollept, men 
who had jiroved their ability and chivalry in 
many a field in Mexico and in this civil war, gal- 
lant gentlemen, of whom their country had much 
to hope, had it pleased God to spare their lives. 
Lyon fell in the prime of life, leading his little 
army against superior numbers, his brief career 
affording a brilliant example of patriotism and 
ability. The impetuous Kearny, and such 



brave generals as Richardson, Williams, Terrill, 
Stevens, Weed, Saunders, and Hayes, lost their 
lives while in the midst of a career of useful 
ness. Young Bayard, so like the most renown- 
ed of his name, that " knight above fear and 
above reproach," was cut off too early for his 
country. No regiments can spare such gallant, 
devoted, and able commanders as Rossell, Davis, 
Gove, Simmons, Bailey, Putnam, and Kings- 
bury— all of whom fell in the thickest of the 
combat, some of them veterans and others young 
in the sei-vice — all good men and well-beloved. 
Our batteries have partially paid their terrible 
debt to fate in the loss of such commanders as 
Greble, (the first to fall in this war,) Benson, 
Hazzard, Smead, De Hart, Hazlett, and those 
gallant boys, Kii'by, Woodruff, Dimmick, and 
Gushing; while the engineers lament the pro- 
mising and gallant Wagner and Cross. Beneath 
remote battle-fields rest the corses of the heroic 
McRae, Reed, Bascom, Stone, Sweet, and many 
other company ollicers. Besides these were 
hosts of veteran sergeants, corporals, and pri- 
vates who had fought under Scott in Mexico, 
or cfntended in many combats with the 
savages of the far West and Florida ; and 
mingled with them young soldiers who, cour- 
ageous, steady, and true, met death unflinch- 
ingly without the hope of personal glory. 
These men, in their more humble spheres, 
served their country with as much faith and 
honor as the most illustrious generals, and all 
of them with perfect singleness of heart. Al- 
though their names may not live in history, 
their actions, loyalty, and courage will live. 
Their memories will long be preserved in 
their regiments, for there were many of them 
who merited as proud a distinction as that ac- 
corded to '' the first grenadier of France," or to 
that other Russian soWier who gave his life for 
his comrades. But there is another class of 
men who have gone from us since this war 
commenced, whose fate it was not to die in 
battle, but who are none the less entitled to be 
mentioned here. There was Sumner, a bi-ave, 
honest, chivalrous veteran, of more than half a 
centur3''s service, who had confronted d.ath 
unflinchingly on scores of battle-fields, had 
shown his gray head, serene and cheerful, 
where death most revelled, who more than once 
told me that he believed and hoped that his 
long career would end amid the din of battle. 
He died at home from the effects of the hard- 
ships of his campaigns. That most excellent 
soldier, the elegant C. F. Smith, whom many of 
us remember to have seen so often on this 
plain, with his superb bearing, escaped the 
bullet to fall- a victim to the disease which 
has deprived the army of so many of its best 
soldiers. John Buford, cool and intrepid; 
Mitchel, eminent in science, Plummer, Palmer, 
and many other oificers and men, lost their 
lives by sickness contracted on the field. But 
I cannot close this long list of glorious martyrs 
without paying a sacred debt of official duty 
and personal friendship. There is one dead sol- 



•dier who possessed peculiar claims upon my 
love and gratitude ; he was an ardent patriot, 
an unselfish man, a true soldier, the beau-ideal 
of a staff officer — he was m)- aide-de-camp. 
Colonel Colburn. There is a lesson to be drawn 
from the death and services of these .glorious 
men, which we should read for the present and 
future benefit of the nation. 

War in these modern days is a science, and it 
should now be clear to the most prejudiced that, 
for the organization and command of arniies, and 
the high combinations of strategy, perfect famil- 
iarity with the theoretical science of war is re- 
quisite. To count upon success when the plans 
or execution of campaigns are intrusted to men 
who have no knowledge of war, is as idle as to 
expect the legal wisdom of a Story or a Kent from 
a skilful physician. 

THE CAUSE FOR WHICH WE FIGHT. 

But what is the honorable and holy cause 
for which these men laid down their lives, 
and for which the nation still demands the sac- 
rifice of the precious blood of so many of her 
children ? 

'Soon after the close of the Revolutionary 
War, it was found that the confederacy which 
had grown up during that memorable contest was 
fast falling to pieces from its own weight. ' The 
central power was too weak. It could only recom- 
mend to the different States such measures as 
seemed best, and it possessed no real power to 
legislate, bfecause it lacked the executive force 
to compel obedience to its laws. The national 
credit and self-respect had disappeared, and it 
was feared by the friends of human liberty 
throughout the world that ours was but an- 
other added to the long list of fruitless at- 
tempts at self-government. The nation was 
evidently upon the brink of ruin and dissolution, 
when, some eighty years ago, many of the 
wisest and most patriotic of the land met to 
seek a remedy for the great evils which threat- 
ened to destroy the great work of the revolu- 
tion. Their sessions were long and often 
stormy ; for a time the most sanguine doubted 
the possibility of a successful termination to 
their labors. But from amidst the conflict of 
sectional interests, of party prejudices, and of 
personal selfishness, the spirit of wisdom and 
conciliation at length evoked the Constitu- 
tion, under which we have lived so long. It 
was not formed in a day, but was the result of 
patient labor, of lofty wisdom, and of the 
purest patriotism. It was at last adopted by 
the people of all the States — although by some 
reluctantly — not as being exactly what all de- 
sired, but as being the best possible under the 
circumstances. 

It was accepted as giving us a form of gov- 
ernment under which the nation might live 
happily and prosper, so long as the people 
should continue to be influenced by the same 
sentiments which actuated those who formed 
it ; and which would not be liable to destruc- 
tion from internal causes, so long as the people 



preserved the recollection of the miseries and 
calamities which led to its adoption. Under 
this beneficent Constitution the progress of the 
nation was unexampled in history. The rights 
and liberties of its citizens were secured at home 
and abroad ; vast territories were rescued from 
the control of the savage and the wild beast, 
and added to the domain of civilization and the 
Union. The arts, the sciences, and com- 
merce grew apace ; our flag floated upon every 
sea, and we took our place among the great 
nations of the earth. But under this smooth 
surface of prosperity upon which we glided 
swiftly, with all sails set before the summer 
breeze, dangerous reefs were hidden which 
now and then caused ripples upon the surface, 
and made anxious the more cautious pilots. 
Elated by success, the ship swept on — the crew 
not heeding the warnings they received, forget- 
ful of the dangers escaped in the beginning of 
the voyage, and blind to the hideous maelstrom 
which gaped to receive and destroy them. The 
same elements of discord and sectional preju- 
dices, interests, and institutions which had ren- 
dered the formation of the Constitution so diffi- 
cult, threatened more than once to destroy it. 
But for a long time the nation was so fortunate 
as to possess a series of political leaders, who to 
the highest abilities, united the same spirit of 
conciliation which animated the founders of the 
republic, and thus for many years the threat- 
ened evils were averted. Time, and long-con- 
tinued good fortune, obliterated the recollection 
oF the calamities and wretchedness of the years 
pT-eceding the adoption of the Constitution. 
Men forgot that conciliation, common interest, 
and mutual charity had been the foundation, 
and must be the support of our government, 
as is indeed the case with all governments and 
all the relations of life. At length, men ap- 
peared with whom sectional and personal preju- 
dices and intei'ests outweighed all considera- 
tions for the general good. Extremists of one 
section furnished the occasion, eagerly seized 
as a pretext by equally extreme men in the 
other, for abandoning the pacific remedies and 
protection afforded by the Constitution, and 
seeking redress for possible future evils in war 
and the destruction of the Union. 

Stripped of all sophistry and side-issues, the 
direct cause of the war as it presented itself to 
the honest and patriotic citizens of the North 
was simply this : Certain States, or rather, a 
portion of the inhabitants of certain States, 
feared, or professed to fear, that injury would 
result to their rights and property from the 
elevation of a particular party to power. 
Although the Constitution and the actual 
condition of the government provided them 
with a peaceable and sure protection against 
the apprehended evil, they preferred to seek 
security in the destruction of the govern- 
ment which could protect them, and in the 
use of force against the national troops holding 
a national fortress. To efface the insult offered 
our flag; to save ourselves from the fate of 



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Tn the midist of the storms which toss our 
ship of state, there is one great beacon light to 
which we can ever turn with confidence and 
hope. It cannot be that this great nation has 
played its part in history ; it -cannot be that 
our sun, which arose with such bright prom- 
ises for' the future, has already set for ever.' . It.. 
must be the intention of the overruling Deity 
that this land, so long the asylum of the op. 
pressed, the refuge of civil and religious liberty, 
shall again stand forth in bright relief, united, 
purified, and chastened by our trials, as an ex- 
ample and encouragement for those who desire 
the progress of the human race. It is not 
given to our weak intellects to understand the 
steps of Providence as they occur ; we com- 
prehend them only as we look back upon them 
in the fiir distjint past ; so is it now. We can- 
not unravel the seemingly tangled skein of the 
purposes of the Creator — they are too high and 
far-reaching for our limited minds. But all 
history and his own revealed words teach us 
to this we are all personally pledged in all 1 that his ways, although inscrutable, are ever 
honor and fidelit)^ Shall sucli devotion I righteous. Let us, then, honestly and man- 
as that of our dead comrades be of no avail ? | fully play our parts, seek to understand and 
Shall it be said in after-ages that we lacked the j perform our whole duty, and trust unwaveringly 
vigor to complete the work thus begun ? That ' in the beneficence of God who led our ancestors 
after all these noble lives freely given, we hesi- 1 across the sea, and sustained them afterward 



the divided republics of Italy and South-Amer- 
ica ; to preserve our government from destruc- 
tion ; to enforce its just power and laws; to 
maintain our very existence as a nation — these 
were the causes which impelled us to draw the 
sword. Rebellion against a government like 
ours, which contains the means of self-adjust- 
ment and a pacific remedy for evils, should 
never be confounded with a revolution against 
despotic power, which refuses redress of 
wrongs. Such a rebellion cannot be justified 
upon ethical grounds, and the only alternative 
for our choice is its suppression or the de- 
struction of our nationality. 

CONCLUSION. 

At such a time as this, and in such a strug- 
gle, political partisanship should be merged in 
a true and brave patriotism, which thinks only 
of the good of the whole country. It was in 
this cause, and with these motives, that so 
many of our comrades • gave their lives, and 



tated and failed to keep straight on until our 
land was saved ? Forbid it. Heaven, and give 
us firmer, truer hearts than that ! 

spirits of the valiant dead ! souls of our 
slain heroes, lend us your own indomitable will, 
and if it be permitted you to commune with 
those still chained by the trammels of mortal 



amid dangers more appalling even than those 
encountered by his own chosen people in their 
great exodus. 

He did not bring us here in vain, nor has he 
supported us thus far for naught. 

If we do our duty and trust in him, he will 
not desert us in our need. Firm in our faith 



ity, hover around us in the midst of danger and that God will save our country, we now dedi- 
cate this site to the memory of brave men, to 
loyalty, patriotism, and honor. (Loud ap- 
plause.) 



tribulation — cheer the firm, strengthen the 
weak, that none may doubt the salvation of 
the Republic and the triumph of our grand old 
Flag. 



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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



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